Editing my life

After a good friend opened my eyes up earlier this week with a heartfelt email it has made me think a lot about different things. The email was about how this friend has dealt with their own passive-aggressive behaviour over the years and they wanted to share their ways of coping with me. They wanted to help me by sharing their very personal and moving journey in order to help me on my journey in learning to deal with things differently.

What I do know is that learned behaviour that I have employed over many years to protect myself will be hard to “undo”. I am sure that from time to time I will resort to my old learned behaviour. Nevertheless, it is about trying to put new behaviours into my life and deal with my emotions and situations in a better way. I want to be more in control of my actions and words. I have written about passive-aggressive behaviour before so I am not going to talk about it here.

One thing that really stood out in the email was that my friend mentioned that they were afraid of people disliking them. I feel exactly the same. I hate the thought of upsetting people and having them hate me. However, at the end of the day not everyone is going to like me and I am not going to like everyone. People are all different and some gravitate towards others and some do not. A bit like magnets really.

In the past year some of my friendships have ended and I am the first person to admit that there were issues on both sides. I am not perfect, and totally understand my own faults (most of the time). I did not want to upset or hurt people and so I started editing my online life. This is something that I NEVER EVER wanted to do. My online life has always been a place where I have felt more “free” to be Ness. So rather than being honest about things I was doing, or places I had gone, or people I had seen I would keep it quiet. I did not want people to think that I was not spending time with them and then end up upsetting people.

We are all busy; yes some more than others. Yes, there are people that I spend a great deal of time with and others I only see once or twice a year. Last year one of my oldest school friends and I made a pact to catch up more regularly and we saw each other more last year than we probably have in the past 5 years. The key to catching up with people more regularly (in my opinion) is scheduling your next catch up each time you see each other. Sometimes I just get into a routine and am slack with catching up with people that I love and care about. Nevertheless, please remember that most people also fall into similar routines and catch up with other friends, and go to places they enjoy.

I simply cannot do this anymore. I do not want to “edit” my life because of the fear of someone feeling hurt or left out of my life. I do my utmost not to do things that would hurt or upset people, but I do realise that I have done it in the past through my own stupidity or passive-aggressive actions. However, I have been hurt and upset by people as well.

Last year was one of nastiest years I have had for a while. When things really fell apart there were friends that helped me through it and those that either did not give a shit, or that I just hid things from. At the end of the day a good friend is someone that you can trust completely. A good friend is someone that you cannot see for a year and when you do things have not changed between you both.

The only promise I can make is that will try and catch up more regularly with the people I care about.

Stripped Bare

Ness in 1983 ~ a year or so before breaking my arm

I feel heartbroken for Christchurch and her people. I am heartened by the spirit of the Cantabrian people and those throughout New Zealand (and the world) that have rallied to help them; be it with rescue teams, police, financial support etc. As one person I am doing what I can to help in my own way with words of support, donations.

On the morning of the 22nd of January things were going well. Then Limpy passed away. I was devastated. He was such a beautiful little kitten and given what he had been through absolutely deserved to live. My emotions were completely raw and I drove from Te Atatu to Forrest Hill crying hysterically; I could barely even see through the tears to drive. Colleen gave me a huge hug which helped immensely and both her and Kathryn offered words of support.

I then had to drive to an appointment with Mel and there were more tears. I thought that the tears would never end. As Mel talked to me about things I started to cry; what she said touched my soul and in the coming weeks I would think back to her words. I remember the tears streaming down my face; as by that stage I could not even stop them.

For the record…I do cry. I do feel intense emotion. I feel empathy. I feel for people. I feel for animals. My heart breaks for our world that is in turmoil. That is who I am.

In the following days I felt ‘stripped bare’. I felt that every single emotion or feeling that I had was worn for the world to see. I cried in private a lot and the tears would stream silently down my cheeks as I thought about different things. These tears were cleansing tears and I needed to get them out so that I could move on.

What I realised is that my self-esteem and confidence in myself and my opinions/thoughts/feelings is at the lowest it could be. I hate mirrors and feel disgusted with myself and often shocked when I see myself in large mirrors or photos. I only like looking at myself in the car rear vision mirror. Why? In the rear vision mirror I cannot see anything from the neck down. I think in my mind I do not feel that I am as big as I look.

I hate being overweight. Why can I not switch my mind over to seriously lose weight? As Mel pointed out that sometimes weight is a protective thing. I have to say that in some respects she is right.

Before all the haters jump on the wagon and say “you are lazy, you eat too much blah, blah” please understand that while I am overweight (actually probably Obese by the BMI measure) there are a lot of emotions tied up with why I am this way as well. I am going to the gym and am looking at what I eat, and the volume that I eat. I do not eat takeaways like I used to and considering I used to have a Wendy’s chicken burger combo every single day I think I have come a long way.

I dislike blaming my past for things in my present or future; nevertheless my past has shaped who I am today. I grew up with amazing parents who loved me and a roof over my head and I experienced both good and bad things. I have been thinking a lot about why I have struggled to lose weight over the years. While some of it is because of energy in (food) and energy out (exercise) there is another wee emotional component.

When I was in standard 3 (possibly year 4 now) I broke my arm. I was climbing up a cliff face in beautiful Omapere and I lost my grip and fell backwards. I am amazed what the human brain can do in a few seconds and as I fell I remember thinking “if I fall backwards onto these rocks I am going to crack my head open”. So I twisted my body and ended up with my arm jammed between two rocks. I managed to pull my arm up and as I walked (crying) towards where we were staying I straightened my horribly bent arm. I remember crying for my father who was in Auckland and also my cousin being a bit of a drama queen (nothing new there). I remember the drive to the hospital and being given a local anaesthetic while they straightened my arm and reset it. My mum could not be in the room and her friend stayed with me. I think that parents just cannot bear to see their babies in pain. Anyway they did not put my arm in a cast in Rawene. When we came back to Auckland they did and when my arm came out of the cast it was bent.

Prior to breaking my arm I was an extremely active child and I swam a lot. With a slight bend in my arm I started to swim crooked and would often end up swimming into the lane dividers. Gradually my swimming decreased (so "bam" there goes a lot of my 'energy out'). Yes, I know there are other sports I could have played, but I did not. I played a little netball, but I did not love it like I loved swimming. Even to this day there is something so healing about the water, and I find that even now when I am down I just want to be in it. I had smaller friends who did ballet and were able to eat whatever they liked (well this is how it seemed to a 9 year old) and still remain small. What I realise now is that they were burning huge amounts of energy when they were dancing. We never really had biscuits (if we did I would eat most of the packet) or chips in the house and we had healthy, whole food. So overeating is nothing to do with my parents and everything to do with me.

Then from 14 my life really started to unravel. In retrospect turning from a child to a teenager and all those hormones going “crazy” probably did not help. Secrets came out in the open for the world to see. I had family members (not my parents) insinuate that I was lying and they questioned my memories. (At the end of the day two people in this world truly know what I happened and I am one of them). We had a family meeting which I attended for about an hour and then I walked out. I walked out because I was unable to deal with the fact that I was being called a liar and things were just going around in circles. Basically things just got fucked up and events got jumbled and some people stopped believing everything that I said. I found out later that the other person involved said something along the lines of “I did not do that because I am not attracted to her (me)”. So perhaps in some strange way I have kept myself in a state of “unattractiveness (i.e. fat)” so that no one will hurt me again because “I am not attractive”.

I figure if I can finish healing some of the old hurts (and combine this with good eating and exercise) that perhaps I will finally be the woman that I am meant to be; strong, healthy and confident. For the record I have barely cried since January and I feel stronger and better equip to deal with things.

I am a very open person and am happy to talk to most people about my life and experiences if they ask. I do not write my blogs for attention, but I write to get my thoughts out there in the universe. I write because sometimes when I speak my voice is not heard, or my words come out wrong.

The last word: I strongly believe that some dark secrets only have power if they are kept a secret.

Simple Things

Simple things in life bring me pleasure, my loving/understanding husband, my beautiful family, our cats, music, roses, sunflowers and my close friends. These are the ones that come to mind instantly.

I am a simple girl, and by simple I do not mean “stupid”. I just want to live a happy life where the little things bring me joy.

Sometimes I cannot always get my words out the way I want them to be heard and people get frustrated or offended. Some people just think I say “dumb” stuff. If you take the time to listen, I will eventually get the words out they way I want them to sound. If you take the time, then I might even add some value.

Tonight I said to my husband that he should read my blog if he really wants to know me. How sad is that. Nevertheless, over the past months I have found the beginnings of my voice again. I have found my voice in writing. Yes, it is not perfect, but it is my voice and with more practise it will get better and finally I will be able to get my words out.

I am not an expert in anything, nor do I claim to be. I am just me, just Ness. I am a wife, mum to our cats, daughter, sister, aunty and friend.

Threads Unravelling

The past couple of days have been pretty hard and horrible for me.

Often, it is easier for me to step inside myself and try and repair the unravelling threads of my ‘sense of self’ on my own. If I push you away, remember this time it is not about you, but it is about me trying to cope.

I have realised and re-learned some things about myself:

- I think that I am a kind person and for the most part not a bad person
- I put the ‘drama’ in Drama Queen
- I want to be there for everyone, and sometimes this is at the expense of my own emotional fragility
- Rather than address problems head on, I tend to be passive aggressive
- If I feel that I cannot cope, I forget that other people have problems, thoughts and feelings to
- I have huge mood swings which quite frankly are a ridiculous waste of time and very hard on the people that love me
- I probably need to consider talking vitamin supplements

How can I change my behaviour to be a better person, a better wife, a better daughter, a better friend and a better sister?

- Understand that the world does not always revolve around me (shocking I know)
- Cut out the passive aggressive and Drama Queen behaviour
- Find a better outlet for my mood swings and try not to let these affect others
- Self-medication by way of giant Jelly-beans (thank you Liz)

To my friends and family: “please do not ever think that you cannot talk to me, it is just that sometimes I need to fix myself a little first before I can be there 110% for you”.

Locking Down my Heart

Whenever I feel extreme emotions such as stress, anger or sadness I immediately revert to ‘negative’ learned behaviour.

It is definitely not something that I am proud of, and now that I am older (and wiser) I can usually pinpoint when I start to do it. Regrettably, I have found that when my emotions are extreme that learned behaviour will sneak in like an old friend that I cannot ignore; an old friend that will protect me when I feel that I cannot protect myself.

The most common learned behaviour that I seem to exhibit is that I start to throw walls up around my heart to protect ‘it’ from being hurt. From this point, I start to shut down and shut people out of my world. Although, I can tell when it is starting, there are some instances when I do not have the power or will-power to change what is happening. It is as if I cannot reconcile the feelings in my heart with the thoughts in my head. It makes me frustrated that in 34 years I have not managed to change some of the deeply ingrained behaviours that I have formed.

I am the only person who knows me the best; I know my strengths and weaknesses, and all the secrets and lies. I can recognise the bits I love about myself and the bits that I do not like. While I do not think anyone likes to be told of their weaknesses, I do appreciate constructive criticism.

So if I push you away, please remember that for the most part it is about me and not about you. And I will promise you, that I will try not to lock down my heart when I am scared of being hurt.

Opinions

Once upon a time I used to be a confident, fairly opinionated person. Over the years, I have learnt to curb my opinions as my confidence has plummeted.

A tweet I received today made me think about why I no longer freely express my opinions like I did when I was younger. Tweet: from velofille @nessliddell if you aren’t sure just say your opinion and if you are corrected then you learnt something.

When I was at school I had a number of friends who were quite opinionated. I found that when I would express my own opinion these friends would almost override my opinion with their own. Over time my confidence started to dwindle as I became sick of having to constantly justify my own opinions, and also to fight to get my opinions heard. To me they were sound debaters and in a way I guess I thought that they were a lot more intelligent than me. I gradually learnt to keep my opinions mostly to myself; only expressing them when I was confident to back them up and not back down.

The other thing that I have realised looking back, is that I would also change my opinion to fit with the majority (even if I didn’t fully agree). Unfortunately, I soon realised that I could avoid conflict completely either by hiding my opinions or changing them to suit the situation. I absolutely hate conflict, and underpinning that is the fear that people will stop liking me because our opinions differ. Also, when I get frustrated or angry I tend to cry, which most people see as a sign of weakness especially in women. I am afraid that if I start expressing my opinion with him, that he will just shoot me down and I will once again be that teenager who let other’s opinions override my own.

As an adult I still reserve my opinions and let fear hold me back.

Currently, my father-in-law is a prime example of when I hold my tongue. I do like him however, he is HIGHLY opinionated, constantly talks about politics and he can be incredibly overbearing (mind you my father is very similar). He is intelligent and respects people that can openly debate with him about anything and everything. I was quite interested in politics at university and got involved a lot, however I don’t feel comfortable debating with my father-in-law or even expressing my opinion. Personally, I don’t care if Helen Clark is a lesbian (what bearing did that have on her as a prime minister), I don’t care to hear racist comments about people and frankly believe there is more to life than politics. Mark and I were raised at very different ends of the political spectrum and as a couple; we try not to talk about politics as a rule. Suffice to say, I don’t go to Wellington a lot.

So where do I go from here? I need to start understanding that an opinion is just that and I believe that we all have the right to express our own. I need to start believing in myself and rebuilding my confidence in my own opinions. If people decide not to like me because of my opinions then do I really want or need them in my life?

So here’s to my “happily ever after”.....